


Broom Brawl

by SarcasmFish (Alcyonidae)



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Alistair being Alistair, F/M, Fluff, Humor, that loveable goofball
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-30
Updated: 2016-11-30
Packaged: 2018-09-03 05:02:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,510
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8698078
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alcyonidae/pseuds/SarcasmFish
Summary: Alistair and the Warden get caught up in your average Ferelden tavern brawl while trying to spend a night out of a blizzard.





	

The tavern could have been one of any in Ferelden.  Small, but still somehow cozy; full of strangers, but still somehow homey.  It was rare that the group would allow themselves the luxury of a tavern, let alone the luxury of a stay at an inn.  Caves and tents, lying low, out of sight were the usual protocol.  But there was a terrible storm rolling and rioting through the night, dropping heavy clumps of snow wherever it went.  It was the sort of blizzard that skipped your skin and went right to freezing your bones.  It howled and cried at the patrons inside the little building, but the laughter and songs within all but drown it out.  The warm bodies and tingle of ale in the blood made the frigid winds someone else’s memory.

A woman sat at one of the tables in the back, clothed in garb too large for her with a handmade hat pulled down over her hair until it almost covered her eyebrows.  A mug of something steaming sat between her hands, but she did not drink from it.  Her eyes darted over the other customers, seeming to study them or weigh them before moving on to the next.  One hand dropped away from the mug and tapped a steady rhythm against the worn wooden table.

Occasionally her eyes would stray towards a man standing at the bar.  At first glance he seemed an ordinary enough human of Ferelden decent, young, inexperienced, and ready to be married off to begin his provincial life.  But upon a closer, more scrutinizing look, the man carried the obvious bulk of someone used to battle, used to carrying a sword and shield.  It belied the ordinary, ill-fitting clothing that most likely hid armor beneath.

The man was gesturing wildly, spinning some tale of wit and adventure, two large plates of food sat ignored on the bar top in front of him.  The older man serving at the bar nodded now and then to the story the gestures were telling, but otherwise looked absent and bored.

An older man nearby, not quite seated, but more propped drunkenly in a chair slammed his mug onto a table ringed by other similarly built men.  “Loghain – now tha’s a hero!  Born n’ bred n’ the dirt of Ferelden j’st like any of us!”  The speech was slurred, but loud and carried far above the tavern din.

The woman froze, as did the gesturing young man across the tavern from her.  Her eyes locked upon him as a frown and grimace grew over his face.  The original statement had been boastful and bounced its way across the room to her ears.  The new conversation was heated, but too fast, too slurred, and too harried for her to catch. 

The argument seemed one sided.  The intoxicated man was spitting and pounding his fist on the table.  She remained locked in position, eyes now flicking between the inebriated gentleman, the younger man taking vitriol from this drunk quarrel, and their belongings sitting nearby. 

The woman tensed right before the swing.  It was slow and off mark, letting the younger man duck away with little effort.  The drunk’s friends saw this as an immediate insult and launched in to defend him.  It was five against one, but like a whirlwind, the fighting swept others in, turning the patrons on each other for as petty of reasons as stepped upon feet and misheard insults.  Chairs were knocked over by those hurrying to join in the melee and tables were overturned into makeshift shields for patrons unwilling to join in the fight.  Sides and reasons were forgotten.

The winter storm outside screeched and moaned, but was ignored by the brawl of limbs and fists inside of the warm, cozy Ferelden tavern. 

The woman stood, knocking the chair back away from where she sat.  She was small, petite, but carried herself as one who had never seen her stature as a negative trait.  She was outsized, a sapling among the forest of Ferelden humans.  Even the few dwarves in the tavern stood on tables or brandished chairs to extend their reach.

“Alistair!”  She yelled above the racket of the battle.  “Alistair!”  The young man who had been the unfortunate catalyst to the brawl was standing amid the fray, attempting unsuccessfully to stay out of harm’s way.  His attention snapped to her on her second call.  He tried to push his way through the crowd to meet her, but could not get through the heads and fists separating them.

The fighting was moving her way.  She tried to bounce up onto her toes to see over to him.  “Alistair!  My staff!”

He glanced around himself to find it, all flying limbs and bloodied noses clouding his view.  Dodging a fist he reached back for the staff and tossed it across the crowd to her.  She immediately spun on a pair of men pressing in on her and gestured out in a wide arc in front of her with the staff.  A barrier burst out, shimmering and flickering in the dim candle lighting in the tavern.  Instead of hovering in the area and keeping her separate from the impending threat it expanded like a balloon filling up too fast, knocking the men and several others back like wooden toys.  The barrier toppled a table and chairs before fizzling out in a sad crackle.

She glanced at the staff in her hand with a scowl and then turned that scowl back across the tavern.  “Alistair!  This isn’t my staff, this is a broom!”

Frustration set her teeth to grinding.  With one hand Alistair had a dwarf twisted by the arm, with the other he was holding a man back from sweeping the dwarf up by the beard.  Letting go of either of them would be disastrous.

“Sorry!”

Without her staff her magic would be wild and hard to control.  In this close of combat with so many intoxicated fighters it was a dangerous risk.  A chair came colliding her way.  She spun the broom-staff to knock it away and was quite pleasantly surprised when the wood held.  Even in the Circle her very first staff had seemed like little more than a fancy twig.

Someone smashed a bottle against Alistair’s back, forcing him to let go of the dwarf and elbow the bottle away.  So far, no weapons had been pulled, but now that makeshift arms were being crafted it was time to take risks.

She spun the broom so that the bristles pointed up and thumped the bottom into the sawdust ridden floor of the tavern.  Her fingers gripped the wood, turning them white with the force of concentration.  Ice spun and spiraled along the floor, crawling up boots and calves.  Her eyes narrowed and sweat built up on her forehead as the frost traveled.  The further away from her it creeped the more difficult it was to control.

Her arms shook and trembled, weakening her grip on the substitute staff.  She ground the end of the broom harder into the floor as the surly patrons began to look around themselves, confused as to why their boots were now locked to the floor.  They stopped trading blows and instead pulled at their feet and legs.  Broken bottles and chairs that had become shoddy weapons dropped away as sense crept back into the tavern.

The woman sighed and pulled the hat from her head, revealing a pair of elvish ears and short auburn hair.  She used the woolen hat to scrub the sweat from her brow and picked her way across the tavern.  It was not an easy trek.  The former fighters remained rooted in place, causing her to have to step over them and sometimes slip and slide on the ice.  They stared at her as she passed, because of the ears or the magic she could not be sure.

Alistair had also been caught up by the spell.  The tremendous effort to ensure the ensorcelled ice did not become jagged and spear someone or creep too far and suffocate had not allowed her the luxury of choosing who it affected.

“Hello, love,” he smirked a charming grin at her.  “These gentlemen and I were just having a friendly chat.”

She rolled her eyes at him, but a twitch at her lips revealed the possible affects that grin had on her.  With a tap from the broom on each of his boots the ice melted away, freeing him.

The grin faded into something of a boyish pout.  “We’re not staying in a nice warm inn tonight are we?”

The elf shrugged her pack onto her shoulders, then thrust the broom into his hands and picked up her staff that had fallen against the wall.  At the door she tapped the staff against the floor, a light, fluid touch instead of the thud of the broom.  The ice melted away from the tavern floor, leaving the bruised and bloody tussle gawking, but free.

She stepped out into the roaring blizzard, Alistair not far behind.


End file.
